


melodies in the shape of us

by darkofthemorning



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Music, Post-retirement feels, Songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-16 11:53:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkofthemorning/pseuds/darkofthemorning
Summary: On hearing songs they want to skate to when they don't skate anymore.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61





	1. Tessa

**Author's Note:**

> this is the most informal note i've ever written on a fic but anyway i don't really know if i like this or if it is in fact flaming hot garbage but at this point i figure i have nothing to lose, we just vibing folks. here's a short little thing, enjoy

It’s the opening note that sends an immediate shock to her spine.

The delicate crescendo of a wavering falsetto envelopes the room in a haunting embrace; it makes even the deepest of conversations stop cold in their tracks. All heads seemingly snap towards the same direction, not a single pair of eyes looking anywhere besides the small stage in the corner of the bar. There, a petite woman clings to a microphone and a man with glasses sits motionless in front of a piano, head bowed. 

It’s as though the world within the bar has all of their focus latched onto the young musical duo; or rather, the world minus two. Green and hazel eyes instead meet each other in perfect sync across the high, round table at which they’re situated in the middle of the room.

But of course, that doesn’t come as a surprise. Their synchronicity is unparalleled, a sort of innate skill they’ve had since the very beginning. It was terrifying at first, she reminisces, how often they would match each other’s movements or words off the ice. On ice was so different though, because moving in sync was something they were praised for, something that scored them higher points, something that set them apart from the other teams. But she remembers how annoyed she would often get when they would say something at the same time or turn to walk in the same direction, and he would just laugh at and taunt her.

She loves it now.

She particularly loves how they can tell exactly what the other is thinking from a quick glance, the briefest locking of eyes, even after 23 years.

And now, his eyes tell her exactly what she knows hers are telling him: they need to skate to this song.

He smiles at her then, giving her leg a playful kick under the table before taking a sip of his beer and turning back towards the duo on stage.

She giggles before picking up her drink, admiring the way his jaw clenches with focus over the rim of the glass for a moment before setting it down and shifting her own gaze towards the performers. 

And then the words begin to flow, accompanied by the introduction of slow piano chords, and she’s fully encaptured in the story beginning to be told.

She becomes lost in the intricate dance between vocals and instruments, each harrowing line of the song tugging carelessly at the corners of her fragile soul. She can’t describe the way it all makes her feel; it’s a strange mix of comfort and warmth and brokenness and loneliness, but she loves it all the same.

She’s heard very few things as beautiful as this song; she thinks she could count each one on the fingers of just one of her hands.

Every line of poetry seems to be as impactful as the last, each syllable echoing for a moment in her ears before finding refuge within the spaces of her messy mind.

She can already see bits of the choreography flashing behind her eyelids with each blink: a twizzle here, a lift there, maybe something a little more dramatic on this lyric. She loves when all of the pieces come together so easily like that, something that doesn’t happen often. 

It’s just another sign that it would be ridiculous for them to pass it up.

The song comes to a close, the final notes ringing with peacefulness as the crowd erupts in applause. She claps with appreciation, a smile pulling the corners of her lips upwards when the man and woman move towards the front of the stage hand-in-hand as they bow.

She turns to look back over at him but finds that the once occupied seat across from her is now empty.

Was it always empty?

Her applause slows, as does the atmosphere around her. The lively sounds are drowned out by the way her heart sinks down below her feet, burying itself within the cold and darkened earth. She feels as though she’s in a movie, watching herself lose all composure from the other side of the screen.

Her bright smile is slapped harshly off of her freckled face, something not too shy of heartbreak roughly smeared in its place. She grips the rough edge of the table, head lowering. 

God knows this is certainly not the first time this has happened, and god knows it sure as hell won’t be the last. 

It was worse the first time, she thinks, when she was driving to Toronto from London for a photoshoot a few months after their last performance. She heard a song on the radio, a newer release, she thinks. It had a unique beat to it, and she didn’t like it at first, but then she started imagining herself on the ice with him and all of their movements and suddenly it was the best thing she had ever heard.

She was so excited, already commanding her phone to dial his number so she could gush to him about the music and he would laugh and tell her she was crazy but secretly be on board with it like he always used to be.

It didn’t hit her until the fourth ring.

She'd never hung up a phone so quickly, pulling over to the side of the road and flicking her hazard lights on within what felt like both two seconds and two hours.

She doesn’t think there’s a name for what she felt, let alone a way to describe it.

It was nothing and everything all at once.

He had texted her just seconds later asking if everything was okay. 

Since their retirement, they do check in with each other quite often, more often than she would ever admit that she was expecting. She trained herself to be content with texting once a month at most, maybe meeting up for birthdays. She really didn’t expect much, and she learned to be okay with that. But she was so relieved when text conversations were sparked almost weekly and at least one lunch date was thrown into each passing month on a rare day where both of their schedules were clear. 

Phone calls were usually saved only for times when one of them needed to talk to the other right at that moment, when there was something that couldn’t be conveyed through a text and the other's immediate attention was the most important thing in the world. So, phone calls were much less expected and were much more of a big deal; it was almost always because one of them wasn't okay. 

Was everything okay? 

Not exactly.

But he didn’t need to know that, not this time.

She said that it was just a mistake and asked him about his day instead.

That was by far the worst one, she’s sure of it. The others weren’t as bad, just brief moments of “what if’s” before reality would seep into her cold skin and remind her that she doesn’t do that anymore.

She doesn’t skate anymore.

But then she would carry on with her day and forget that it happened at all, and everything would go back to being as normal as it could be for someone like her.

But it’s different this time somehow. The pit in her stomach seems to be growing with each passing minute, morphing into peculiar shapes that hit just the right spots to make her want to vomit.

There’s something about the feeling that he was right there with her that unsettles her.

That’s never happened before.

But a year to the date after their last performance together, it almost makes sense in a twisted sort of way that her mind would play such a cruel trick on her vulnerable heart.

Of course it would.

She waits for the tears, but they never come.

She just feels empty. 


	2. Scott

His breath forms in small clouds as his shivering hand tries to find the ignition slot with his key. He loves the winter, he can’t lie. With winter comes the peak of the skating season and snowmen and sledding and hockey. 

But he doesn’t love how the remote starter has decided to stop working when he truly needs it most.

He’s been planning on getting it fixed, he swears. He just keeps forgetting.

Of course, he only remembers the dysfunctioning of his starter when it comes time to brace the harsh January weather during his journey back towards his car after a long morning of coaching.

But then the soft hum of the engine and sudden shot of hot air signal the success of starting the vehicle, and the thought is out of his mind once again.

He taps different areas of the screen on his dash in an attempt to find a radio station as he drives out of the parking lot. They all seem to be the same, broadcasting nothing but commercial after commercial about nonsense that makes him roll his eyes as he begins to slow down at the upcoming red light. After what feels like ages, he eventually stops on one with a host announcing the next song, one that seems to be familiar to his ears. 

It begins with a simple guitar riff, the plucking of sturdy steel strings reverberating throughout the leather-clad interior of his car.

There’s something about it, the way the melody is powerful and purposeful yet soft and soothing as it progresses in three-four time. The vocals come in atop the steady thud of a bass drum. 

It sends shivers through each of his limbs, shooting into the tips of his fingers with each tap they make on the steering wheel.

It brings warmth to his chest, tiny golden sparks illuminating even the darkest of spaces within him.

He knows some of the words of the verse; they appear in cloudy bits in his mind which works overtime to piece them together in the correct sequence.

It leads to him whispering a mixture of words and melodic gibberish.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her roll her eyes, but he doesn’t miss the small smile growing from the corners of her lips in amusement.

She’s been forced to tolerate his singing essentially since the beginning, whether it be during those early drives to the rink when he’d sing as a means to keep him awake, or as they skated as a way to calm his nerves and help him remember the sequences. 

You would think that for the amount of singing he does that he would have an incredible voice.

She once told him a while ago as a joke that he sounds like a chipmunk with gravel in its mouth, whatever that meant.

But secretly, he knew she loved it when he sang. It brought a sense of calm and made her feel grounded in times when she could not feel further from either.

She laughs at him now, the bubbly child-like sound overpowering the music for a brief moment when his eyes squint as he tries—and fails—to hit a high note at the beginning of the chorus. It rings out as though it were its own song performed by the most prestigious orchestra.

She joins in then, her slightly off-key voice contrasting his  _ very _ off-key one for the remainder of the chorus. The difference between them is that she still hits the majority of the notes, even the high ones, while he manages to miss practically every single one, usually either to sharp or too flat or just plain wrong.

They laugh in unison at their ridiculousness, and he shakes his head when she continues to sing the second verse, only slightly surprised that she knows all the words.

He loves it when they’re together like this, being their authentic selves in a world where the expectations of them are at the greatest they have ever been. He misses when it was easier to be like this, and he hopes that maybe one day it will be once again. 

As she nearly flawlessly hits that note in the chorus that he earlier struggled with, a smile grows on his face with an idea:

They should skate to this song.

He isn’t sure why, considering that he doesn’t even know it that well and he doesn’t really love the artist. But watching her have fun with this, especially after what he knows has been a bit of a rough year for her, ignites his heart with something not too short of pure happiness.

He speaks her name and allows his eyes to follow the direction of his words to their destination on the passenger side. 

His heart twists when he finds that the seat is empty. 

He snaps his head back to the road in front of him, confusion weaving its way through each part of his mind.

He looks back again, one, two, three, four times, his stomach sinking further into the seat with each glance. 

But each time, his eyes only find haunting vacancy. 

It’s happened a couple times before, he thinks, hearing a song during long drives or something that comes on when he shuffles his playlist or even something that plays during warmups during competitions.

There’s a moment of elation, an epiphany if you will, where he feels it so deep within him that the song would be perfect.

He’s gotten that with most of the songs they’ve skated to, especially towards the ends of their career.

He’s never been one to be able to perfectly imagine the choreography to each beat—that was more of her thing. But sometimes he would catch a glimpse of a lift in a heightened part of the music, or a twizzle that would work perfectly at a specific lyric.

But within mere moments, he’s reminded that his place on the rink is no longer, not unless it’s to model edge exercises for his students.

It hurts, he can’t lie, the way his heart ignites with a different kind of fire during those moments. 

And just as quickly as it came, the flame extinguishes into an endless swirl of black. It’s as though the smoke is an S.O.S. of sorts, a helpless signal for someone to save him from these wandering thoughts that make him feel so pathetic inside.

Not only is skating no longer part of his life, but neither is she

Not as much as she used to be, anyway.

That’s what hurts the most.

He realizes now, for the first time, that he hasn’t spoken to her in over a month. This is not counting their very brief and dry “Merry Christmas” conversation from a few weeks ago. 

He doesn’t even know why; it’s not on purpose. Of course it isn’t. He could never do that to her. He isn’t purposefully avoiding her or pushing her away, and neither is she to him.

They just lead two incredibly different lives.

And busy ones, too.

Growing apart is agonizingly inevitable when you remove the only common thing you share from the equation.

It took him a really long time to understand that.

He isn’t sure he fully understands it, nor accepts it, not even now. 

And God knows he doesn’t want to.

He slowly pulls into the driveway of his home and switches off the ignition, dropping his forehead to the top of the steering wheel. 

He sits there until warmth that once hugged him gradually fades into a piercing bitter cold, and not at all because of the weather outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really curious to know what songs you think both Tessa and Scott may have heard in their chapters. I didn’t actually have any specific songs in mind, but I was listening to Lover when I was writing Scott’s chapter so it may have had a bit of influence on the description of the song...


End file.
